


fleeting

by inexorableformation



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Could Be read As Platonic I Guess?, F/M, Insomnia, Post-Recall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24684688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexorableformation/pseuds/inexorableformation
Relationships: Ana Amari/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes
Kudos: 7





	fleeting

Ana wakes in a cold sweat. Pictures in her head. They don't match the ones on the wall, the ones of old friends and family. They smile at her and she frowns back, clutching her wrists. Thinner than in her memory. Ana shakes her head and throws back the covers.

The only sign of life on base is the animated talking from behind Hana's door as she passes. Furious clicking, too, and then a joke that makes Ana chuckle. She hears nothing from inside the kitchen. One step into the room and she pauses, her hand still on the door handle.

Reaper isn't facing her. He leans against the counter, staring out the window onto the side of the cliff. The mask stares with him, bleak white bones and hollow eyes. For a minute Ana doesn't move from her spot.

"I can go," Reaper says. Quiet, neutral. Eyes fixed on the clouds.

"I assumed you could," Ana answers. "Are you going to?"

He turns his head towards her, just slightly, just enough.

"Depends."

"On?"

"Do you want me to leave?"

She takes a moment to reply. Lifts her hand off the door and moves to the kitchen counter to prepare the kettle. She doesn't look at him, passes by and decides not to see smoke.

"No."

"Oh?"

"You don't need my permission to stay," she says and pours her tea. "But you have it."

"Appreciated."

Ana takes her cup and sits down at the table. Reaper hasn't moved from his spot but he is facing her now. Still the mask but not the armor, none of the weapons. Casual clothes, all black, and a hoodie that has seen better days.

"You also have my permission to sit down and stop hovering," she says. "I would offer you some tea but your daughter mentioned you lost your sense of taste."

Reaper strolls over, pulls up a chair and sits across from her.

"You talked to Sombra?"

"She talked to Jesse. I happened to be there."

"Ah."

"She seems to be adapting well to leaving Talon," Ana says and takes a sip. Reaper laughs and her grip on the cup tightens.

"Sombra adapts well to everything."

"She didn't get that from you."

"Says the one showing up here at three in the morning."

Another sip. Ana watches him over the rim of her cup.

"There is no point in trying to go back to sleep when you're already wide awake."

"Not gonna argue with that."

They sit in silence for a while. The sky outside is not clear, not entirely clouded. No sun yet. Gibraltar rests.

"It _is_ strange, coming back here," Reaper says and crosses his arms over his chest. "I didn't think I would."

"It holds a lot of memories."

"I had a routine, in Talon, for the cameras. Knew their blind spots. It's easy to avoid them when you're like me."

Ana's lips twitch.

"A _tactical genius_?"

"A ghost," Reaper says. "Is that what they said in the eulogy?"

"So I was told."

He might be laughing. The mask is a constant, a static skull with only a shadow moving behind the holes it has for eyes. Ana shakes her head.

"How long are you going to wear that?"

Reaper leans back on the chair.

"My face has not been very... well-received in the past."

"Scared?"

"Hardly."

"That sounds like something someone would say if they were scared."

"You could ask," Reaper says and the amusement is audible now. "I don't mind."

Ana pauses, sets her cup down on the table. Porcelain. She holds onto it.

"Then this is me asking."

"Understood."

Reaper removes the mask, breathes a different breath of air, and sets it down in front of him. Ana steels herself.

"Hello," she says. "It's good to see you, Gabriel."

Reaper raises his eyebrows. The swirling mass of fog that is his left eye moves, as well, and so do the many pieces of bone visible through the deeper gashes in the skin. There is a bright spot in the middle of his iris and she focuses on it.

"You asked," he says. "Can't really blame me for this one."

"I'm not blaming you."

Reaper tilts his head and this time she sees the crooked smile.

"That's a first."

Ana keeps her hand on the cup but she feels the distance more acutely now. A decade. A table. The mask rests but the pictures in her head do not.

"Why choose a skull?" she asks. "A nod to Blackwatch?"

"I've been told it looks more like an owl."

Ana hesitates for a long time. Her heart is light, suddenly, and she gets up. Reaper watches her go, doesn't ask. When she returns with a new cup of tea she sits on the chair next to him.

"I meant what I said," she tells him. "It is good to see you."

Reaper hunches over the table, folds his arms, rests his cheek on them. Still facing her.

"Likewise."

"That's a first," Ana says with not quite a grin, not quite a smile.

"Why are you up?" he asks, curious, not hostile.

Ana sets down her cup and places a hand on his shoulder. She squeezes down and doesn't mention that the surprise in his eye translates to the shiver running down his spine, too. Ana doesn't move her hand.

"The usual. Do you remember the dream I used to have?"

Reaper hums.

"Brazil? Or the one with the drowning?"

"A little bit of both."

"You've checked on Fareeha? Jesse?"

"Have you?"

He laughs, closes his eye and there are scars on the eyelid, too. He looks relaxed, placid.

"Yeah. First thing I did was ask Athena. I don't sleep much anyway, so, as you know-"

Reaper trails off.

"-it isn't optimal to have nightmares."

They stay in silence for a while. The clean sterile light of the lamp above the table casts no shadows. Ana drinks her tea slowly, methodically, until the cup is empty. She pushes it away. Rubs her thumb over his shoulder, over and over, until her eye falls shut. Sleep will find them another day.


End file.
